225th Anniversary Video
Inspiring doctors with a sweeping history of medical innovation.
The Massachusetts Medical Society, a venerable institution dating back to the Revolutionary War, came to Captains of Industry when they needed to celebrate their 225th anniversary and reenergize their membership. The challenge was to convey the full breadth and depth of their history in a way that was exciting, engaging, and concise—no small feat given the fact that the society’s past mirrored the entire history of modern medicine. The Medical Society’s leaders wanted the video to make members proud, feel good about continuing their membership, and enthused about the future. Captains created a 15-minute video that told the Medical Society’s story in a highly compelling way, combining historical reenactments, interviews with leaders of the Society, and montages of archival documents. Doris Kearns Goodwin, a prominent historian who introduced the video at a gala event, summed up the audience response when she said, “I just loved it!”
Strategy and creative rationale:
History can be dull. Or history can be riveting. It all depends on how you tell the story. And good storytelling is at the core of what Captains does for clients. Instead of listing historical events onscreen, we did everything we could to make the history come alive. For example, we began the video with, quite literally, cannons blazing; it was the final battle of the Revolutionary War, a seminal event of the era that happened to coincide with the founding of the Medical Society. We wove the thread of dynamic, revolutionary change throughout the video, graphically demonstrating how Society members drove the adoption of groundbreaking medical advances. Just as important as the history, we showed how the Medical Society was poised to create tomorrow’s medical history. In the process, we helped get everyone in the audience genuinely excited about the future of the organization, and proud of their role as national leaders in the medical profession.